Ghost in a-Cyborg?

Ghost in a- Cyborg?

    What makes us human? What makes gender universally understood in social contexts? According to Donna Haraway, author of “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” gender, race, or class consciousness is an achievement forced on us by the terrible historica experience of the contradictory social realities of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism. After viewing the movie Ghost in the Shell, one can’t help but use Haraway’s ideologies in constructed their depiction and meaning of the movie itself. As a narrative critic, Haraway’s point of view and the movie makes me want to question whether humans truly do play a role in sexual differences that are seen in society.
    Haraway explains that a “cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction.” To her, Contemporary science fiction is full of cyborgs - creatures simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted. This can be definitely seen in viewing the movie, Ghost in the Shell.
    Ghost in the Shell takes place in 2029, a world where humans can “trade up” for cybernetic implants and prosthetics or “trade out” to almost full cyborg “shells” like Major Kusanagi. She is the cyborg section 9 leader is ultimately seen as God, for others to worship, in the movie. The movie is trying to highlight that the idea of becoming “ghosts in a shell” is culturally where we’re going. Cyborg is in a post gender role where gender is taken out of one’s cognitive reasoning. Haraway says, “The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity.”  In essence according to Haraway and Ghost in the Shell, we’re all cyborgs.
    As a narrative critic I could argue that it is true that socially we assign our gender roles in society. We assign masculinity and femininity through perception and we construct it through constantly living out the ideal of gender; in order to not break away from the stereotypical norm of what society says each gender entails. This is not natural according to Haraway and this can be argued either way. With a narrative critic’s mind frame, I could utilize Haraway’s ideas, as well as themes presented in the movie to form a possible conclusion on this idea.
    The Ghost in the Shell set up for explorations in various topics, ideas, and themes. One being of what does it really mean to be human? Or, in Haraway’s world, what is the significance of being “gender-blind?” To be human is it the definitive entity of a body of flesh, a consciousness, a soul, or “ghost”? If one’s body is entirely mechanical, can one still consider themselves human? In contrast to Haraway arguments, if a female’s soul was placed in a male’s body, or vice versa does the gender identity change or not? If one’s consciousness is active, yet their body is not present, do they essentially still exist? Lastly, a narrative critic could consider focusing on the thought of the idea that a gender free world may not necessarily be a good in reality. I’m almost positive there can be arguments in favor of gender roles in society serving as a positive element toward the functioning of human existence.